Lu Zong hissed, "Quiet down, just look for yourself." He pointed below with both fingers, signaling Ma Xiong to see for himself.

Ma Xiong narrowed his eyes, peering down for a long time. Finally, his face went ashen as he whispered to Lu Zong, "I see something swinging back and forth below. Is that a restless spirit?"

Lu Zong scoffed, saying it must be their hallucination. "Ma Xiong, do you still have a flare stick on you?"

Ma Xiong pulled one from his pocket, lit it, and tossed it down. As the light flickered near the strange object, they all stopped breathing. In that instant, they saw a corpulent body dangling from a vine, swinging like a pendulum.

Lu Zong shouted with delight, "It's Fatty! It has to be Fatty! Let's go quickly, we need to rescue him; he might still be alive!"

He was the first one down, moving so fast that even Ma Xiong couldn't keep up. Annoyed, Ma Xiong cursed under his breath, "Damn it, it's not like it's a woman or money, why the rush? Fatty is tough as old leather; waiting three more days wouldn't matter." Ganda glanced down, then slowly began to descend, telling Ma Xiong, "Ma Xiong, let's hurry. We need to get out of here quickly. I have a bad feeling about this place; my head is starting to spin."

Ma Xiong shot back, "You go first! How can I leave if you don't? Honestly, for someone who’s spent so long crossing the desert, you’re awfully timid."

Ganda explained, "You misunderstand. In our local customs, we place immense importance on ancestral remains. Those things—the spiritual essences—belong to ghosts and deities; how could we possibly desecrate them?"

Ma Xiong had no patience for this lecture and interrupted him impatiently. "Get down there, get down there! Don't start reciting sutras here with me. Hurry up and see how Fatty is doing."

Below, Lu Zong had already reached Fatty and managed to carry him to a relatively flat stone nearby, starting to administer CPR. From the atmosphere of the scene, it genuinely held a touch of the romantic.

Ma Xiong arrived at the stone moments later. He checked Fatty's breathing, let out a sigh of relief, and said, "He's alive. He managed to escape the clutches of the King of Hell. But we should still thank this vine. Earlier, it was dead set on consuming us, yet now that it’s dead, it saved our lives. By that measure, it's equivalent to building twenty-eight pagodas of merit. Amitabha."

Ganda slumped onto the platform, panting, and looked at the unresponsive Fatty, exclaiming in amazement, "Damn, has Fatty gotten a little fatter?"

Lu Zong thought the team was truly pathetic; even the most honest Ganda was picking up foul language. He resolved that when time allowed, he would properly discipline these arrogant, ruffian-like intellectuals. And the best way to clean up such vulgar culture was to find a beautiful woman to keep by his side; then everyone would try to act refined in front of her, and that feigned civilization would count for something. Therefore, their primary task now was to locate Lusha and Han Chong.

He looked at Fatty, one of the biggest scoundrels in the group, now so unnervingly still. He suddenly realized his previous thought was flawed. A beautiful woman wasn't the only factor that could reform a rogue; another method was knocking him out cold. Still, at this moment, he secretly wished to see Fatty restored to his boisterous, unruly self. Ah, this quietness was really quite unsettling.

Accompanied by a violent fit of coughing, Fatty's body shook violently. Lu Zong realized Fatty was entering the awakening process. He knelt by Fatty’s ear and whispered urgently, "Fatty, wake up. You need to wake up."

Under Lu Zong’s repeated calls, Fatty finally forced his eyes open. Seeing those few familiar faces, he suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of closeness, lingered for a few more seconds, and then promptly rolled over and vomited onto the ground.

Lu Zong patted Fatty’s back while apologizing, "I’m sorry, Fatty. I intended to save you and throw the torch at the vine to scare it off, but I didn’t expect your butt to catch it."

After vomiting for a while, fearing he'd get hungry quickly without anything in his stomach later, Fatty turned back over and swallowed what he had been holding in his mouth. The sight made all three of them feel nauseous. Fatty, however, smacked his lips casually and said, "It’s fine, I know you meant well; I don't blame you. Where are we now? Have we reached the main tomb chamber?"

Ma Xiong replied vaguely, "Almost, almost. Just hold on a bit longer, and we'll be there."

Fatty was extremely dissatisfied with Ma Xiong’s answer and pressed again, "I asked where we are right now. Lu Zong, where are we?"

Lu Zong also gave a vague reply, "Maybe another hundred meters to go?"

Fatty became animated, jumping up and down, "You mean we only have a hundred meters left to the bottom? That's damn exciting! Let’s speed up, we should make it in half an hour!"

Lu Zong gave a cunning smile and clarified, "I meant we are a hundred meters below the ceiling opening. The space below is still an unknown."

Fatty collapsed onto the ground. "You threw me down here, and now I can't climb anymore. At my weight, I’d just pull all these vines down with me."

Lu Zong encouraged him, "Fatty, rally! Success isn't far off; just push a little harder! Look below—can you see any red specks? I'd bet my life that’s the bottom!"

Fatty looked down and indeed saw flashes of red below, perhaps three or four hundred meters away. Nevertheless, it made his legs tremble, and he quickly pulled his head back.

He asked Lu Zong, his voice trembling, "Lu Zong, what do you guess is down there? Why is it so red? It looks like angry eyes glaring at us—it’s terrifying."

Ma Xiong also pulled his extended body back, saying fearfully, "Oh my god, it’s still this deep? Just looking down terrifies me! Let’s hurry up and stop wasting time here. No matter what’s down there, we all have to go down eventually. We are currently in the Eighteenth Level of Hell; if we go further down, we'll just loop back to Earth. Let’s just treat the bottom as tunneling right through the Earth until we reach America. Going to America has always been my dream; looks like it’s coming true this time." Saying this, he burst into excited laughter, his heroic spirit overflowing, before he adopted a demeanor as somber as a cold wind crossing the Yi River and started climbing down.

Ganda looked at Ma Xiong, held up a thumb, his mouth twitching slightly from tension, and managed, "Amazing... that's... ma... manly..." Then he followed Ma Xiong down.

Lu Zong helped Fatty up and said, "Now it’s your turn to make a choice. Do you choose survival, or do you choose to breed maggots?"

Without a word, Fatty spun around, clambered back onto the vine, and told Lu Zong, "I wouldn't stay here even to have a baby." Lu Zong smiled, then joined the crawling procession. Ganda suddenly mused aloud, "Humans were originally reptiles; why bother crawling upright?"